Thursday, May 1, 2008

What keeps us busy?

Or the real question is what keeps us away from sewing. Other than the housework or a full-time job.

I was over at Jemima Beans blog and was in great admiration of her daughter. I love sports pictures and her daughter is a softball player. Good girls do indeed hit and steal! Being a uncoordinated sports loser, I always wanted my daughters to be tough little cookies. Being one of the "loser" types of girls in gym class was not to my liking and I wanted my girls to play hard and not be like me. If they had some type of dance or aerobics and weightlifting in gym class, I would have excelled, just not organized sports (neither of my parents were into group sports at all).

So our parental mandate is that all our kids must play a spring and fall sport. We don't care what it is. Over the years, DD#1 has played tennis and soccer. She's more of a natural athlete. She's now playing Varsity Tennis and Track. Today I'm going to her meet to watch her do Jav, maybe run the 800 if I don't have to leave to get the boys off the bus. DD#2 plays Field Hockey and Softball. Right now it's softball season and she's on two travel teams and the school team. Both the boys play spring LL baseball.

This keeps us very busy. My nights are activity filled with no time for sewing. I work on ribbonwork sometimes at the boys' games--depends what position they're playing. The girls are older and really play competitively so I have to watch. And I like to watch. But this means sewing time is drastically cut.

It's so worth it though. To watch the physical growth, mental concentration, self confidence explode through hardwork, motivation, and dedication makes it worthwhile to the nth degree. And to be able to do so and maintain excellent grades, well, I didn't do either. Not only was I a sports loser, but an academic loser until I turned myself around as a high school junior.

There are things that I hate to lose sewing time to, like housework and food shopping. Sports is worth it though. It just does so much for the kids. Some people may say kids are successful because their parents push them or are trying to relive their past. Yeah, I've seen that. We push to a point. They're my kids with my genetics--they *need* to be pushed LOL. Not shoved, mind you, just pushed. Actually more like a nudge. If we didn't, they sit home and play with their thumbs and become losers like their mom. Well, I consider myself a reformed loser :) !

Maybe later I'll post some sports pictures. Just like any parent, I'm mighty proud of them. And if it weren't sports and they were in Marching Band or some other activity and working hard at it, it would be just as good.

So march on over to .Jemima Bean's blog to check out a good girl that hits! And a home run to boot :)

4 comments:

What keeps me busy? Volunteer work, especially at son's private school. They're very dependent on their volunteers. And enabling son's social life. It's important to me that OUR home be the social hub so I know exactly who his friends are and what they're like. So I spend a lot of time (and gas money!) taxiing friends to and from our home.

My daughter is a varsity cheerleader at her high school, so we are constantly watching her cheer at football and basketball games and competitions. Cheerleading has developed into this very athletic activity, quite unlike when I was in school and the cheerleaders didn't do much more than jump around. My son wrestles and golfs. You're right, there's not much time for sewing when you have active kids.

I can relate to not liking organized team sports in school either. I always hated PE until I got to high school and we did individual sports like the ones you mentioned, weight lifting, gymnastics, running and even badminton and tennis were fun!

Of course, I was a single mom for some of the time my older girls were growing up, and they lived with their father for part of the time BUT he and I agreed on almost every aspect of raising them so that included some kind of activity. For one it was swimming and gymnastics, for the other, swimming and dancing (XH was a swim coach) For my youngest, whose father is NOT a swim coach, it's been swimming all the way. Since swimming is a year round sport, and pools few and far bewteen, I have spent more hours than you can possbly imagine sitting at the pool with time on my hands. I've made cards, scrapbooked, made jewelry and read. Sewing just wasn't that easy to cart around.

About Me

Hi. My name is Kat, and welcome to my blog where I explore the wonderful world of DIY via sewing, woodworking, cake decorating, among other things. Join in on the fun as I work hard to create a beautiful and interesting life through imagination and creativity.